The cat is finally out of the bag by now: Blizzard currently has massive problems not only in terms of PR, but also in the area of development. The player numbers in WoW are dropping, which can be abstracted from the lack of a WoW growth forecast in the last quarterly report. Within 3 months, Blizzard lost 2 million players – according to the report, the studio actually lost a total of 29% of its total player base over the last three years, across all games.

The answer followed on Aug. 27, 2021, when Blizzard announced that virtually every change ever proposed in a forum would find its way into WoW in patch 9.1.5. Overwatch lost its game director in April of this year, development for StarCraft 2 has already been halted since last year, and the specter of a comprehensive mobile game offensive including Diablo Immortal and two titles in the Warcraft universe looms menacingly on the horizon. The only game currently garnering virtually unqualified praise from the gaming community is Diablo 2: Resurrected. And that’s a game more than 20 years old, with a new paint job.

When, as is currently the case with Diablo 2: Resurrected, the question arises as to what made the old games so good, the answer is almost always very simple: the developers of the time. As we mentioned in our article and video “Blizzard’s decline”, the company lost one founding member after another over the years. In this article, we’ll tell you what Blizzard’s ex-designers, developers, and presidents are up to today, and which development studios the Blizzard veterans are hiding behin

Dreamhaven: Mike Morhaime’s Dream Factory

To start things off, we’ll turn directly to one of the great hopes in the development field: in September of 2020, ex-Blizzard president and co-founder Mike Morhaime announced that he was founding the Dreamhaven studio. Combined with in-house development studios Moonshot Games and Secret Door, it’s a self-contained corporate entity – in plain English, that means Dreamhaven acts as both a parent developer studio and publisher. The studio’s independence was so important to Morhaime that he even mentioned it explicitly in an interview with the website Venturebeat. The ability to “control the fate of the studio itself” led the Morhaime couple to the decision to fund Dreamhaven entirely with their personal assets.

According to Morhaime, Dreamhaven wants to provide its developers with a safe environment in which to design games that, and we quote, “put the quality of the product and the player experience above short-term financial pressures.” According to Morhaime’s own statements, he wants to make Dreamhaven a place where working on games happens in a better way than usual. Each of the two sub-studios has a financial stake in the parent company and is completely free in its choice of game development. “They can pursue their passion for game development without interference,” Morhaime noted in the interview “they have control over their own destiny and hopefully feel like they have the best of both worlds with it. The entrepreneurial spirit, the stability, and the resources that otherwise only larger companies could provide them.”

Dreamhaven was funded entirely with the private assets of the Morhaime couple. The goal is to provide studios with a safe and creative development environment.

Source: Dreamhaven

Morhaime also picked up high-profile ex-Blizzard developers to ensure high quality in the future: Moonshot Games studio includes Jason Chayes, who led Blizzard’s Hearthstone team as executive producer; Ben Thompson, who served as creative director on the Hearthstone team; and Dustin Browder, a true game development veteran: Browder served as game director on the development of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, the Battle for Middle Earth series, StarCraft 2, and Heroes of the Storm. In addition, Browder worked from 2017 to 2019 on a project that Blizzard internally called “Ares”: A First-Person Shooter in the StarCraft Universe, which Browder described as a “Battlefield in StarCraft.” Working builds already existed in the Overwatch engine, where players could fight against each other as Terran Marines and Zerg, when the project was suddenly cancelled.

Taking over the ex-Blizzard leadership of Secret Door are Eric Dodds, who served as Hearthstone’s first Game Director, Chris Sigaty, who served as Lead Producer for Warcraft 3 (the original) and Executive Producer for StarCraft 2 and Hearthstone, and none other than Alan Dabiri. Alan worked as Technical and Game Director for Hearthstone, Star Craft II and Heroes of the Storm. And yes, you guessed it right: Alan is the son of Shane Dabiri, another Blizzard veteran.

Before you start jumping for joy, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. However, due to Mike Morhaime’s genuine enthusiasm, the commitment of his personal fortune, and his self-proclaimed mission to “build gaming experiences that create a real connection between players,” we are cautiously optimistic in this case. Dreamhaven is the studio on this list that has the best chance of recapturing that old Blizzard feel. We remain excited!

Warchief Gaming: Chris Metzen’s D&D Campaign

Having covered Morhaime’s vision of the old Blizzard, we move on to something completely different: Chris Metzen took the position of Vice President of Creative Development at Blizzard and was thus responsible for the story of the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo series. His drawings graced almost all of the instruction manuals of early Blizzard games, and he even published his first book in the Warcraft universe, Of Blood and Honor. Incidentally, a small side project of Metzen’s was a graphic novel in 2005, which he created together with the Brazilian artist Max Velati. Its title: Soldier 76. In 2016, the character was adopted as a playable hero in Overwatch. Metzen also became famous as a voice actor, lending his voice not only to Thrall, Ragnaros, Vol’jin, Varian and even the StarCraft Marine – he can now also be heard in the Neflix series “The Prince of Dragons” as Dragon King Avizandum. So Chris Metzen can above all write great stories and characters as well as create worlds. What could be more obvious than to make his hobby (once again) his profession.

Warchief Gaming is a development studio of a special kind: Here, the team around Chris Metzen does not develop video games, but tabletop role-playing games!

Source: Warchief Gaming

In October of 2020, Chris Metzen and former Blizzard Vice President of Quality Assurance, Mike Gilmartin, expanded their private tabletop club, Warchief Gaming, to include a tabletop developer studio of the same name. After adding another Hearthstone developer to the team in Ryan Collins, the two unveiled their new campaign world: Auroboros is a Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign set that focuses on an interlude between eight powerful city-states, urban fantasy, cults and crime syndicates. The world is also overshadowed by the powerful “Mark of the Serpent,” which gives player characters the power to move mountains and control minds – but at a permanent cost. The Kickstarter possessed a goal of $50,000 at its launch. Meanwhile, the crowdfunding status stands at more than $1,200,000 and more than 10,000 backers, with a steady upward trend. We already know that Chris Metzen can create great characters and universes. In the meantime, he’s no longer doing it digitally, but in our heads.

Frost Giant Studios: Tim Campell and Tom Morten make real-time strategy

When people think of Blizzard, they not only have action role-playing games and MMORPGs in mind, but especially great real-time strategy titles like Warcraft or StarCraft. Anyone waiting for a rebirth of Blizzard’s real-time genre will be happy to hear about the founding of Frostgiant Studios in September of 2020. At the helm of the development studio are Tom Morten, who made a name for himself primarily as Production Director for StarCraft 2, and Tim Campbell, who worked on Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, NOX, Starcraft 2, as well as Lead Campaign Designer for Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, and most recently served as Game Director for Wasteland 3.

The interesting thing: The two strategy titans took on the rest of the StarCraft 2 team at the same time, it felt. We have to take a breath: In addition to the lead artist, lead designer, two lead co-op designers and a gameplay engineer, there’s also a lead engineer and a server engineer from the former StarCraft 2 squad on board. Not surprisingly, the young student’s goal is to create the “Next Great Real-Time Strategy Game,” which they say will be based on Unreal Engine 5. In the second fundraiser round, the studio was able to raise $9,700,000, as well as support from notable investors, including League of Legends studio Riot Games. Incidentally, to top it all off and fully ignite the hopes of the real-time community, a collaboration with Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven Studio has been announced. Let’s hope for the best.

Frostgiant Studios brings not only Blizzard veterans, but also a large amount of StarCraft II developers and a cooperation with Dreamhaven.

Source: Frostgiant Studios

Bonfire Studios: Online multiplayer for core gamers

Already a little longer ago, Bonfire Studios was founded back in 2016. The studio’s Blizzard DNA is made up of Rob Pardo, former Blizzard vice president of game design, and Josh Mosqueira, former game director of Diablo 3. However, it is worth mentioning here that Min Kim, the former CEO of Nexon America is also in the executive suite – the South Korean developer Nexon is one of the worldwide pioneers of the Free-2-Play model.

Bonfire Studios says it wants to produce games for PC core gamers – the Diablo Immortal debacle was a lesson to the developers.

Source: Bonfire Studios

Bonfire Studios’ current focus is on developing a Unity-based cooperative MMO that will “combine competitive and cooperative elements.” The targeted audience for the MMO is the hard core gaming community. In an interview with PCGamesn, Rob Pardo noted, “It’s definitely a game for core gamers; we’re not going to present you with a mobile game a la Candy Crush out of the blue.” With a small dig at Diablo Immortal, Pardo admitted, “Our time at Blizzard taught us what gamers really want.” Through small teams that are largely free to work and live in a relaxed environment, Bonfire Studios says it wants to make “imagination and mutual learning” its corporate compass once again. In terms of finances, by the way, Riot Games is once again lending a hand to a studio of ex-Blizzard developers. We are curious to see if a pattern emerges here for the next few years.

Skystone Games / Greybeard Games: David Brevik’s RPG career

Lovers of the Diablo series will know something about the name David Brevik, as the then-founding member and President of Blizzard North worked as Lead Programmer and Senior Designer on Diablo, as well as Project and Design Lead on Diablo 2. Brevik also participated in Warcraft 3, but his true love was always the Diablo series. In February of this year, Brevik spoke extensively about the then-planned second expansion for Diablo 2, and explained how Blizzard North would have implemented the final version of Diablo 3. Hardly surprisingly, after his departure in 2003, he founded the developer house Flagship Studios, which was supposed to produce action RPGs. Unfortunately, the studio was dissolved in August 2008 due to financial problems. After a brief stint as creative director at Turbine, he joined Gazillion Entertainment in 2009 and became CEO in 2013.

Since 2016, David Brevik has been lending his action-RPG expertise as a consultant for the Chinese branch of Grinding Gear Games; the studio is behind Path of Exile. Brevik also owns his own indie studio called Greybeard Games, which previously released the game It lurks Below on Steam. Together with Bill Wang, a former member of Perfect World Entertainment, the ex-Blizzard great founded the publishing and development studio Skystone Games in 2020, which helps up-and-coming indie studios. Our insider tip: On the website graybeardgames.com you can find the original pitch document for Diablo 1. An absolute must-read for anyone who wants to understand the design process behind the old Blizzard games.

Second Dinner: Ben Brode’s financially strong Marvel project

There is probably no ex-Blizzard legend who was able to gather such a large fanbase around him in such a short time: Ben Brode became known for his friendliness, infectious laugh and hilarious actions. Our tip: check out Ben Brode’s Un’Goro Rap. In 2018, Brode took his hat and founded his own developer studio Second Dinner just three months later. This was finally followed in 2019 by the announcement that the studio had not only found a notable partner, but was also fully funded: In a collaboration with Marvel, Brode was able to secure a cash injection of $30,000,000 (!). Together with ex-Blizzard greats such as Production Director Yong Woo and Art Director Jomaro Kindred, work is now in full swing on a Unity-based Marvel game. Due to the absolutely enormous investment on the part of Marvel, for which Brode says he had to make no compromises, the studio also offers its employees something that cannot be taken for granted in the indie sector: financial security. Brode sums it up aptly on his website, “Here, you feel like you’re in a strong start-up – except you don’t have to worry about running out of money before the next milestone!” In any case, we wish Ben every success.

Ben Brode was able to make a precision landing with a Studio Second Dinner: A cooperation with Marvel and several million dollars in financing bode well.

Source: Second Dinner

One More Game: Patrick Wyatt’s Desired Workplace

Patrick Wyatt was not only one of the first Blizzard employees ever, he also programmed on the original version of Battle.net. He has also been involved in Blizzard flagships such as Warcraft 2, StarCraft and Diablo, as well as absolute classics like Rock’n’Roll Racing and Lost Vikings. After working for Blizzard for eight years as Vice President of Research and Development and Senior Programmer, he and two friends founded ArenaNet, the company most famous for the Guild Wars series. In 2010, he took over the position of Chief Operations Officer for En Masse Entertainment, overseeing the release of the online role-playing game TERA, and then moved to Undead Labs in 2014, where he worked together with Jeff Strain, another founding member of ArenaNet. Since 2015, Patrick Wyatt has taken the position of Senior Principal Engineer for Amazon Games. However, that didn’t stop him from starting his own studio.

In 2019, the studio One More Game (abbreviated as “OMG!”) was launched and funded by investors with $5,700,000 in the following year. The focus of the development studio is on creating cross-platform games for mobile and PC. But what’s most interesting is the company’s philosophy, which is very clear: no on-site jobs. Everyone basically works from home. As much vacation as you want, there are no annual limited sick days, and every employee gets a full insurance package, including disability insurance, as well as a $6,000 stipend per year that they can use to fund their continuing education as they see fit. As long as the work gets done when it’s supposed to, the studio fully backs its employees. Within the corporate culture of the USA, these are almost paradisiacal conditions. As Wyatt sums it up on his website, “We want to create an exemplary workplace where creative, hardworking and friendly people work.”

In conclusion, the ex-Blizzard greats’ studios want to be defined by one thing above all else: A pleasant working environment in which it is once again possible to develop good games. If you constantly have fear breathing down your neck, you won’t create masterpieces. This sounds obvious, but in practice it is extremely difficult. For one thing, American corporate culture worked against this principle by seeing workers as office supplies rather than sentient beings. For another, many studios tend to view investors as their customers – the player himself is merely part of the revenue cycle. Can the fresh studios recapture the old Blizzard feel through their small size and family atmosphere, or are they repeating the sins of their fathers? What do you think? In any case, we’re very excited to see what the future holds.

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